Starting in September, Dr. Dooshaye Moonshiram will be working with Serena DeBeer’s newly established group Inorganic Spectroscopy. She is funded by an <link https: www.humboldt-foundation.de web home.html _blank external-link-new-window internal link in current>Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral fellowship.

Dooshaye Moonshiram received her PhD from Purdue University (USA) on the spectroscopic characterization of Ruthenium based catalysts for artificial photosynthesis. She was previously a postdoctoral fellow at Argonne National Laboratory, studying proton reduction catalysts through time-dependent approaches.

At the MPI CEC, her research will focus on studying artificial analogues of light harvesting units coupled to methane monooxygenase (MMO) enzymes, which are catalytically active for the conversion of methane to methanol through time-resolved X-ray absorption and emission spectroscopy in the picosecond-microsecond time regime. Insights gained through this project promise to deliver insights into the dynamics of oxygen activation, C-H bond breaking, and thus help to understand the mechanism of methanol production for the blueprint of a versatile “light-to-fuel” device.